Most digitally recorded communication signal files have a very large data size due to the over-sampling and continuous monitoring in signal collection and recording. Generally, some current computer or signal processing equipments afford only a very limited buffer size for data processing. Due to an order of magnitude size disparity between large communication signal files and limited data processing buffer sizes, the review, editing and search of any large communication signal data file with uncertain contents often becomes a very lengthy, tedious, time-consuming and inefficient process. Additionally, the procedures employed by the user are often quite labor intensive. In many signal analysis or signal intelligence applications, only a small section of the entire data file will be important to the operator. Typically, a tedious and time-consuming prescreen routine requires the user to load the large data file on a section by section basis into a small buffer for review until the user finally identifies the data section that is desired. An illustrative example of the difference between the size of a large data file and a limited size working space buffer is a disparity of 100 GB and 100 MB.
Thus, there has been a long-felt need for processes and techniques that overcome the problems, disadvantages, limitations and shortcomings of loading large data files section-by-section into a small buffer for further user review and processing. An adaptive trimming or decimation method could edit or tailor large files efficiently in a fixed-size small buffer. Graphical User Interface software, apparatus and methods used during decimation will satisfy the long-felt need for processes, apparatus and software that overcome the numerous problems, disadvantages, limitations and shortcomings of loading large data files into small buffer areas and the subsequent manual search. The present invention provides a user-friendly Graphical User Interface (GUI) software program to edit data files, including data signal files, with an adaptive decimation ratio that decimates, or trims, the size of the desired large data segment in order to better fit into the buffer for further data processing, without suffering from the disadvantages, shortcomings and limitations of prior art techniques and devices.